svchost process goes wild

[helpful55]

I can’t go over the whole story here as it would take a book with the fiasco it has been at every step, but I’ll give some of this. This is a dell n5110 laptop, W7 64 bit, 4GB ram. I bought it with a bad screen and I am not absolutely sure that it worked properly when I got it. It seemed to but I went right to doing what I wanted in programs and changes for my own use. Along the line on that it started to max the ram and I found a svchost process that starts somewhat randomly and of course pretty much disables the pc. It may not max the ram out as easily or may take a little longer to do that as I upgraded to 4GB recently, but it still seems to slow it way down and I have never seen something like this. One thing that for sure will start it is running an update check. That is when I first found it. It can vary a lot how much ram running that uses, but it is always awfully high. I just ran that and it never came to an end in about 30 minutes!! I had seen some web info on some kind of update that can cause this and windows had installed that, it is update agent 7.6.7600.320. But now that should not be in the pc as I state later on.

I was ultimately going to do a dell-less clean install, but I wanted to fix the svc host just to figure it out and to see if maybe I caused it somehow. I did many malware scans. A Malwarebyte helper was mostly just mad I had done so many scans, other helpers have not been able to fix it. No one seems to want to really investigate the actual process to understand it for repair. I am too old to spend what is left of my life on one pc and so after a lot of miscellaneous problems I have now re-installed W7. That was going along and while installing drivers pretty soon goofy things were going on again and lo and behold the svchost problem is still here!! When I installed I even let the installer format the old dell partitions so I would be sure they had nothing that would cause any problems, so that should be clean. I am now stopping any further work with this just in case someone wants me to do some kind of different install process again. It seems like there must be some way to find what this process is and stop it. There are about 150 services when I expand that svchost process! Can someone tell me how to find out what this process is that goes wild and how to fix it? Thanks.

 

[Crazyripper]

I had the exact same problem what I have had to do is disable Windows update all together reboot the pc and monitor usage.

if you have the same problem as me after disabling updates and rebooting the issue you are experiencing with the ram should be fixed

 

[helpful55]

I don’t think it is too soon to say that took care of this part of the problem. Instant success there. I have done various things on this laptop and nothing is setting off the offending svchost process. Thank you for that info Crazyripper.

I think that the first time this started was when I went to check for updates and it is the way to get the most instant svchost lunacy. I forgot that even if I set to my usual way which is let me install it is still checking all of the time, so if I turn it completely off it is not even checking unless I initiate it. I still am hoping to figure out how to fix this so I can go back to “check and let me install”. This may be a help to someone why this is happening: This laptop sat for a while and I see hadn’t been updated for quite a while. When I went to check for those the list was probably long, which is of course true now (what maybe 100 on a new install?) and it is maybe going crazy with that long process/list. It is strange to me that I am starting over with a clean hard drive and it still has the same problem. So does anyone know how to be able to get all updated and fix the underlying problem? I can’t be going without all of the updates. I will also check at MS, but I know the help is usually better here. Thanks.

Edit: One thing is I still have the windows.old file that was created. I don't know if anything that may be causing trouble is still operating there?

 

[cyclops]

You can thank MS for the check updates process hosing your computer. They really want you to upgrade, if that's what you'll call it, to Windows 10.

 

[Callender]

Just a note to say that disabling windows updates is not a fix. I presume you also disable your antivirus if that stops working.

 

[Crazyripper]

Hi callender I am well aware that disabling automatic updates is not a fix however it is the only option I have available to me as I cannot think of a better solution

Perhaps you can share your insight on the topic and resolve the issue we are experiencing?

 

[Callender]

Well I had the same issue a few times over the last six months. You can see if you have the same issue by following the steps in this post.

Unfortunately the fix isn't easy, is not guaranteed to work and could take several attempts over several days.

 

[Crazyripper]

Hi Callender

I most certainly have the same issue as the steps in the above post, as it is my original post asking for help in the first place, which I posted several weeks ago

 

[Callender]

I should pay more attention. Yes that post I linked is in your other thread!

Well what worked for me was:

Fully reset Internet Explorer. Reboot.

Run a script to remove all versions of windows update client. Run another script to remove any Windows 10 upgrade updates. Run a specific MS Fixit three times in a row with a reboot between each run and disable WU service along with network adapter for the second and third run. Then run advanced disk cleanup (to include windows updates cleanup) and reboot. Then run a script to fix and reset windows update components including manual unlocking of files in use in order to delete them and even force deleting them where this didn't work.

Then waiting 24 hours (until after the next scheduled update check) before enabling Windows Update service and running an update check (notify only) - then hiding any Windows 10 upgrade updates and WU Client upgrades.

Disable Windows Update service again then manually download and force install Windows Update Client.

Reboot and disable Windows Update Service. Wait 24 hours before re-enabling and running an update check.

A lot can go wrong and it would be pretty tricky to follow all steps even if I attempted to post them in detail.

 

[Callender]

@CrazyRipper

Did you ever take action on LaybackBear's request here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/windows-...0005-please-read-post3164697.html#post3164697

Can you actually confirm that you are experiencing high RAM usage by:

"C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\DataStore\DataStore.edb"

when a windows updates is enabled and a check is in progress or has been run?